“Analog”
T-shirt design for Hurley’s “H-Space” Artist Series
Some photos from the night thanks to lifewithoutandy!
The complete painted version of my shirt/sketch design. Will put up some clearer photos later.
More photos from the night can be found here
Why Kaiju? We both mutually thought it was something cool that hasn’t really been done in Sydney especially from a full illustrated standpoint. We both share common love and influence from that side of the East, so stepping out as a collaborative force we thought it would be the perfect fit.
From the onset while planning the gallery with Gerald, we knew we wanted to go big, loud and colourful. Gerald’s art before this point was all precise and detailed black and white ink work so it was a big jump out of his comfort zone to go into large scale canvas colour.
Check out his works over at his fb page.
Kaiju themselves aren’t really bad nor good. As opposed to Western monsters they are strictly born to fight and most of the time born to lose. They come in wacky shapes, sizes, colours from menacing to just plain goofy. The creative freedom is pretty much limitless.
With my Kaiju I wanted to draw influence from the “boss” monsters. The guys that would typically fight at the end of a long battle. I knew Gerald was going to infuse a more classic Kaiju look as well as act as an extension of his “Rhombians” so I wanted to go a bit left field by playing with pattern and other cultural influences.
‘VERSUS’
120 x 90cm
Mixed Media
’99 Chambers’
90 x 120cm
Mixed Media
‘BONE BO¥’
90 x 120cm
Mixed Media
‘Nigo Owes me a Hundred Favours’
90 x 120cm
Mixed Media
Big Thanks to everyone who came: friends old, young, new, hairy, kaiju extremists etc! Gerald & I had a ball and I hope you guys enjoyed the work as much as we enjoyed making it. A special thanks goes out to Qwux, Chris, Sarah and Phyllis for helping us bump in and get everything ready. Here are some shots from the night taken by Qwux and Lisa.
A more comprehensive write up can be found on the Rah Collective website.
What I’ve been busy working on for the past few weeks…
“VERSUS THE CITY”
Chris Yee X Gerald Leung
Kaiju (怪獣, kaijū) is a Japanese word that means “strange beast,” but often translated in English as “monster”. Coming in all shapes and sizes, these creatures rise from the dark of the ocean and volcanic undergrounds of Earth to do battle, with the city as the ultimate battleground.
Paying homage to these bizarre beasts, Chris and Gerald venture through slipstreams of influence from old legends of the silverscreen, the dynamism of the manga panel and the wacky nature of the East to give birth to their creations.
The Tate Gallery
345 Glebe Pt Rd
Wednesday August 29
6pm
Be There!
My piece for the “Hyper Reality Dimension XX” gallery the other week.
This was my tribute to all of the high energy, Saturday morning Jap Heroes of the 70s/80s/90s. Besides my “Evil Ryu” spin on the godfather, Ultraman, other side elements I tried to include were some of this, this, this, and this.
Initially I was going to do a whole piece on Guyver entirely, my personal favourite growing up but I was afraid it wouldn’t be as easily recognizable. So I did the next best thing and created a mash-up instead. So yeh If you don’t know please check Guyver out, I guarantee the most bizarre, dark, violent version of the good old power rangers type you’ll ever see (titty laser cannons? you can’t beat that).
The piece is acrylic and a bit of spray on a 40 x 30 canvas.
Photos of the event are now out courtesy of aMBUSH gallery which can be found here
The online catalogue to check out all of the other works can be found here
Over the weekend I exhibited a poster with 19 other artists for the newly opened “Damp Store” in Curl Curl. All of the posters are sold and printed on demand at a crispy A1 size Go over there check out the works/ pick up some original threads the guys are designing.
A low Q version of mine. The theme of the show is “moist”
Props to Qwux/Rah Collective and Damp Space!
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Some more stuff from the Manly Art Wall adventures
It was especially dope to be put in the presence of such talented guys. In particular it was great to meet one all of my all time local favs, Ben Brown and to see him kill it. Check out that board!
The boards go on auction real soon, keen to see how much they all go for
So a couple of days ago I was rostered to do a live art piece as one of the featured artists for the 1st Aus Open of Surfing event on Manly beach. Asked and accepted literally hours before painting, this is what I came up with…..
Props to Cam Wall for hooking me up aswell as setting up the whole artistic aspect of the event. The event goes on for a few more days with a different artist each day painting a different segment of the wall. Afterwards the wall and a customized surfboard by each artist (including myself) gets sold and donated to charity. So be sure to head down and check out the event. They even built a bowl with a mini skate comp featuring your boy of THPS2 fame, Bob Burnquist.
Cam working the next day
I started at 11 and was supposed to go on till 6/7ish but due to the thunderstorm the event got washed out after 4 hours. Im planning to head down another day this week to finish up the charity board and maybe do more to the wall.
There is also a competition through instagram (#AUSopenofsurf) which you can learn details about here. The most popular (or something) photo wins any segment of the wall of choice. I jumped on to suss it out and this was my personal favourite
#shayz
Been away for a bit but I think it’s time to jump back on this blogging bandwagon again…
Whats been doing? A few things, its most art-schools graduate show season so theres been plenty of free booze and opening nights, including my own. I’ll cover this all on a later post.
But from where I left off…
2 weeks ago it was the Pin-Up Parlor show/exhibition at the Backroom in the Cross.
Cool people, Nice works, Great performances. Hats off to Gigi Vine and Lauren for putting everything together. Heres the final piece that I exhibited, my 50’s dime “Bonita”.
I recently met a fellow Cofa-based artist Irene Feleo who also had a piece in this show. Talented stuff with a lot of delicate linework, check out her work here
More progress photos…
Garage daze
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On a side note, made about 50 – 60 copies of my first real sketch zine – “Palm Reader”, that was given out for the night. If anyone missed out, give me a shout and i’ll hook you up with a copy 🙂
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Finally, on a random point Ice coffee is the best drink known to man. This is the best store bought coffee, super rare but go get it if you can find it!
yeetheeast.com 
